Does anyone know when the first use of the single tear was? I was going to say La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, but a quick Google corrected me in that Falconetti had a tears in both eyes.

Oh, it goes back further than that:

Offspring of Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh is strong to perfection
And when he cries it's from one eye, and one eye alone
That's right, you heard me, one eye, and one eye alone
The left one

Aw, gee - trumped by French silent film and Sumerian Lit.

And here I was, thinking we'd be able to pin blame for the Trail of (one-eyed) Tears on this guy.

__________________As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.